I found these in the produce section of Fubonn and had to have them. Of course, I had no idea what they were or what to do with them, but I trust in the powers of the world wide internet to see me through. At only $1.48/lb they’re a bargain even if they just end up as part of my voodoo death necklace. The label identifies them as “Bull Head / Trai Au.”

Clearly a Vietnamese name but google wasn’t all that helpful. We see two results in English and several in Vietnamese. I can’t read the latter and none of them look like recipes anyway so I concentrated on the former. One blogger also found them at Fubonn and didn’t have many hard facts to offer. The other found them at a market in Vietnam. He claims that the market lady told him that they were Trai Au and explained that they were Lotus Roots. Obviously he misunderstood. I know a lotus root when I see it and these things aren’t the least bit root like. I think they are thorns because they resemble the ant infested thorn bushes we fought our way through while hiking on Isla Providencia.

Cheyenne and I have prowled the markets of Vietnam ourselves and don’t recall having seen anything like it. Either they were out of season or they aren’t too common. Of course, we could have missed them while we were distracted by the live scorpions or the imitation cockroach extract (I kid you not, it’s called Ca Cuong).

They turn out to be pretty hard to get open. Forget about doing it by hand because of those spiky ends. A hammer works well but it doesn’t seem possible to remove the meat in one piece. I hit them until they break open then pry the insides out with a knife.

They are bland and mostly tasteless but very slightly bitter with the texture of mature coconut meat. I still don’t know what to do with them. It doesn’t seem worth the effort to eat them as nuts and I can’t imagine cooking with them either.

Larry made a couple of delicious pies from this beautiful squash.

Washington County, Oregon (800×600)

Hans and I stumbled across these at twilight and ended up crawling through the brush in the dark digging them up by flashlight. We’re calling them Boletus aereus (Queen Bolete) even though we discovered them in a thicket of fir trees. Otherwise, it could be some mutant form of Boletus edulis with whitish bloom on the cap. Or it could be an as yet unnamed species. We can tell you they are very yummy and skirt the whole issue by calling them porcini or cep. Common names just don’t require the same precision.

The pilot light alone provides just enough heat and air circulation to dry mushrooms perfectly and fill the house with the earthy smell of porcini.

Cheyenne and I went back this morning to make sure we didn’t miss any. There were a few, but Hans and I had done pretty well on the first pass.

An easy one for the fungal taxonomist (Amanita muscaria).

We haven’t been out very much since we’ve arrived in Portland and I have a sneaking suspicion that we might be regretting that in about three months. What usually tends to happen is we’ll go out to one of three or four places only–and there have got to be at least forty million great places within walking distance of our apartment. One of the places we seem to frequent a lot lately is, um, a doughnut shop. (It might be the pregnant lady’s fault.)

Voodoo Doughnut is a small downtown shop populated by hip tattooed counter folk and sporting a general mayhem behind the counter that makes it look more like a crowded print shop rather than a bakery (except for the smell). Other ways Voodoo Doughnut is not like your average doughnut shop: They have slogans like “good things come in pink boxes!” They have Bacon Maple Bars! Their fryer gives free Swahili classes Monday nights at the shop! They do weddings! They are open 24 hours/day!

We managed to go twice this past week during Michelle’s visit because Michelle is a person who can appreciate the culinary finery that is a Bacon Maple Bar.

Since we were driving to Ashland to see a play, we decided a pink box for the road was in order. We got a Bacon Maple Bar—just to be different, an Apple Fritter (pregnant ladies need their vitamin C), a Cock & Balls (triple-cream filled), a Blood-Filled Voodoo Doll, and a Dirty doughnut (with peanut butter and crushed Oreo cookies on top).

Michelle is pleased with the selection.

A sensitive portrait of a half-eaten Voodoo Doll. The inside gore is raspberry. The stake through the heart is a pretzel stick. I’m not sure who ate the right arm.

Sadly we didn’t get any photos of the Cock & Balls—it broke apart when handled and was unsuitable for photography.

We mentioned that shortly after anchoring in Alacran, we were visited by a scruffy but adorable little birdie who, after maybe thirty seconds of initial hesitation, entered our cabin and totally made himself (herself?) at home in our boat. Strangely, he was not worried about us at all, even when we moved around, and a couple of times he landed on our arms or knees. He explored the entire interior of the boat and settled into a lap pattern: cockpit to sink/galley area, where we had a squeezed lime sitting on the counter, pick at the lime (working on the scurvy), hop around and then make the short flight to the settee table, give Joshua the eye and then hop across the table flying up to the aft window shelf/ledge, start at the basket of shells/beach debris looking for insects, move onto the plastic lid I made a water dish out of and splash water all over the cabin, move on to the basket with pens and miscellaneous crap and look for bugs, tuck into the far corner hidey hole for maybe two seconds before emerging and making way back to cockpit, spend some time in cockpit and then enter forward cabin, do some stuff (we weren’t in there) and return to aft cabin around three minutes later to repeat the entire process over and over again. He never even pooped on our stuff either, or at least we never found it. Not yet.

About a day after we left Alacran, we were visited by another small bird; this time a swallow. It was a beautiful bird with iridescent blue/purple head feathers, long clean and smooth wing and tail feathers, a rust-colored throat fringed with a bit of black, and a pale gold breast. He landed on our boat and sat for a bit on the foredeck, then moved closer, closer (trying to get out of the wind), and finally perched on the edge of the cockpit before falling asleep. While asleep, we had total immunity and could move freely within inches of him; when awake, we were more careful because sudden movement of massive bodies freaked him out a little. He slept on and off for hours and nearing dark, crawled into the cockpit cubby to sleep. All night long we wondered if he was still inside the cubby because we never saw him fly away but in the morning, he was gone. (This one was a pooper though and our sail bag, which was stuffed in the cockpit locker, suffered.)

We saw a number of migrating swallows, among other birds like egrets, “songbirdies,” etc., all flapping madly for the southern US coast. Nobody else stopped to rest though.

All this friendly bird action reminded us of a photo we took in 2002 of what happens to little birdies who lose their inhibition. This is a street-snack stand that would appear in the evenings in Phnom Penh, Cambodia.

[Click the image to see the full photo.]